Another Great Outsell Signature Experience

Anthea Stratigos
Outsell, Inc.
Published in
4 min readNov 4, 2021

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It was a big week for the Outsell Signature Experience, with four digital sessions on each of three days focusing on various aspects of innovation. Our sessions earlier in the quarter included the Global Economic Outlook and the Outsell Information Industry Outlook. This week, we started on Tuesday with three more outlooks, on COVID-19, M&A, and China.

Our partner and event co-producer Wilma Jordan, Founder & CEO North America of JEGI Clarity, told us that M&A deals are up substantially from this time last year; PE firms still have almost $3 trillion of dry powder available to invest. Michael Struble of Eagletree Capital said the level of activity this year was like nothing they’ve seen before.

Dr. Steven Simpson, President of the American College of Chest Physicians, joined us for a second year to talk about the prospects for the pandemic, an essential component of the program now that we are having to learn to live with COVID-19. He pointed to the statistics showing the efficacy of vaccines and their importance but also highlighting concerns for the winter.

Robin Bew, MD of The Economist Intelligence Unit, gave us an unvarnished view of China on the geopolitical stage and its aspirations and motivations. He projects slower but steady growth, continued focus on core technologies, and a consistently uncompromising approach from President Xi Jinping. He highlighted the challenges for media and information companies — The Economist is effectively banned there — and how others such as LinkedIn were pulling out, too. Operating in China requires deep pockets, a sense of the long haul, and the agility to adapt on a moment’s notice to the whims of regulators and the ruling party.

Our own Simon Alterman gave his view on how companies in our industry are innovating, based on a study of 70 companies. The long and short of it: Innovation is really important, but execution is not effective enough. It requires leadership commitment, skilled people, a supportive culture, intense client focus, and a process of controlled experiments. Innovation can’t stand apart — it needs to become the way everyone does business.

On Wednesday, I interviewed Thomson Reuters CEO Steve Hasker, who talked about taking up his role at the start of a global pandemic, responding to the Black Lives Matter movement in a city housing one of the company’s biggest offices, and focusing on delivering not just great content but a great experience for customers.

We heard from James Aylett of Annalect about how to build a data culture in the age of privacy and how important it is to integrate ethics into that culture. You know the culture is strong if sometimes you decide that a data initiative cannot go ahead.

We had two contrasting but equally fascinating case studies about business model innovation in modern media businesses. Aaron Asadi of Future plc told us the story behind the firm’s dizzying growth and the large proportion of revenues now derived from affiliate e-commerce. And Gemma Postlethwaite of Arizent took us through its transformation from a business organized around formats and brands to one built on serving specific professional communities.

Thursday wrapped up on an amazing note, looking more into the future. Mark Stignani of law firm Barnes & Thornburg joined tax technology specialist Graham Tilbury of FTI Consulting to discuss automation in professional services with Outsell’s Hugh Logue. Automation is already here, and its importance is growing, but they said that for now it still requires the professional judgment of an expert, not least to explain the outcomes and recommendations that automated systems might provide.

Lee Schneider of Ava Labs gave a masterful exposition of the complexities of blockchain in just 20 minutes, making it sound quite simple. The security of the blockchain, the power of smart contracts, and the unique digital representation of anything on the blockchain make it a technology that information businesses should not ignore. That session was followed by a fascinating discussion of the future of scholarly communications, its conflicting incentives and requirements, and the drivers of change. Alix Vance of AIP Publishing moderated a session featuring Dr. Alexandra Freeman, Director of the Octopus initiative, and Jan Reichelt, a serial and highly successful entrepreneur in the space.

We ended with a vitally important topic: diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Alyasah Ali Sewell of Emory University demonstrated the complexity of race and ethnicity, the impact that labels can have, and the challenges of gathering and using data in this area. We know that this is not an easy subject to address. We also know that it’s something for today, not tomorrow.

In short, it was another great few days at the Outsell Signature Experience. The sessions are all on video and available on demand. Become a client and join the thousands of CEOs and their teams who look to Outsell to stay ahead of the industry curve.

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Anthea Stratigos is a Silicon Valley CEO, wife, mother, public speaker, and writer, among many other passions and pursuits. She is Co-founder & CEO of Outsell.